Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight title holder Robert Whittaker believes Israel Adesanya should be concerned.
Whittaker and Adesanya are set to clash in a middleweight title unification bout later this year. Adesanya captured the interim UFC middleweight gold in a thriller against Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 236. “The Last Stylebender” won the bout via unanimous decision.
Whittaker Believes Adesanya Should Be Worried
“The Reaper” was a guest on the latest edition of ESPN‘s Ariel Helwani MMA Show. During his appearance, Whittaker explained why he feels Adesanya will run into problems when they fight:
“Israel should be very worried. If he can weather the storm and take my shots for five rounds and counter and do everything he did with Gastelum, then congratulations to him. But I don’t think he’s going to. I’m a different fighter than Gastelum. I bring much more heat. I hit harder. I hit faster. I’m going to come with a new level of intensity that he’s not used to.”
Whittaker also expressed his belief that the flaws in Adesanya’s game are more apparent than ever:
“If you watch the fight, you can see that the holes that were there every fight before, they just got exposed bigger. There are a lot of things that Gastelum exploited, and there were a lot of things Gastelum could have exploited but couldn’t because of his makeup, because of his striking style, because of his height and reach.”
Do you think Robert Whittaker is the man to stop Israel Adesanya’s unbeaten streak?
